Is Amazon Doing Anything To Fight Latest Wave Of Fake, Paid-For Reviews?

Since Amazon began allowing customers to post reviews on product pages, various waves of bogus reviewers have attempted to game the system by posting fictitious or dishonest write-ups. While Amazon has recently taken legal action against people paid to write fake reviews for products, and the site has aban on most forms of “paid” reviews, there’s a new crop of compensated reviewers who are receiving free or discounted products in exchange for then writing “honest” reviews. But some of these users are writing dozens of reviews a day, sometimes for products they couldn’t possibly have tried.

This newer form of fake, paid Amazon reviews are creeping in thanks to marketing sites that offer free and deeply discounted items if buyers promise to then share their honest feelings on Amazon.

While Amazon’s review guidelines prohibit most “paid” reviews, they do include an explicit exception “when a free or discounted copy of a physical product is provided to a customer up front” if the user “clearly and conspicuously disclose[s] that fact” in their review.

That’s because e-tail giant has its own form of a “free stuff for reviews” in Amazon Vine, which allows select customers to get pre-release access to some products.

But Amazon knows who Vine members are and what they’ve received through the program. Amazon does not, however, necessarily know if a reviewer purchased an item through some discount marketer with the promise of writing a review.

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